The Bitter Truth
by vanille patisserie
Summary: AU Furuba; different characters; apocalyptic age


INFORMATION ON STORY:

This story is about a young girl who, when embraced by the opposite gender, or is put under a lot of stress, changes into a dog - one of the symbols of the Chinese Zodiac. The God, a man that looks over the cursed members of the Sohma family, wants to keep his family together, and when Juliet's parents decide to move, he is not at all happy. However, having no control over their decision, he lets them leave unwillingly. The story is mainly about Juliet's time in Paris, France and the love she thought she discovered while living there. The concept dealing with the changing into an animal comes from Furuba, a manga/anime, but this was written for a role-play on . The role-play was set two years after D-Day - a day when bombs were dropped randomly over the globe, destroying cities and lives alike ( basically an alternate universe for the furuba theme ). I hope you enjoy reading it, and do hope you leave criticism!

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Juliet Marie Sohma found that her world was forever changed when her family moved to Paris, France during the twelfth year of her life. Leaving behind family and friends, her parents took her away from the place that her childhood memories would be forever stitched into: Japan. The God despised her parents, and told them that nothing would await them but pain and suffering for their daughter - that taking her away could never change the fate that destiny had bestowed upon her. But her parents argued that just because she was 'different' did not mean her life had to be lived in isolation and fear. As much as any other person, Juliet had the right to be happy, and they promised to give her that. A child with a heart for music, she could tell a story with her fingertips that struck the white keys of a piano with such delicacy, it was almost as if the piano itself played for her - like it knew the mood of her heart. She could play a song that brought tears, or a melody that hushed the crying babe. Her talent was what had opened up her life to opportunities that took her overseas to a foreign land. No matter what the God had thought the reason was, he had never believed it was really for her own happiness. A jealous creature he was, but it may have been more the feeling of loneliness that stirred his heart more than his envy. Juliet continued her piano playing in France where she entered many competitions, her determination to show the world what she could do, strong and bold. It was when she was sixteen that her life seemed to take its unexpected turn down a road she had not yet traveled. It was a road that led to a young man named William James Delacour, a twenty-one-year-old college student who was in his second year of medical school. He was a genius, a man that would make any father proud, and he had captured Juliet's heart. Love was a wild and fierce thing that burned in their hearts and caused their bodies to ache. He gave his heart to Juliet for her to hold, to touch, and to love by tying his heartstrings around her fingers. Every twitch of her fingers and every movement of her body pulled him. He loved her - all of her - even the side of her that took the form of a dog. Juliet was Juliet. No one else.

If this was how they felt for one another, Juliet knew that one day, maybe this curse of hers would finally disappear.

But then it happened.

For three years she wrapped herself in love, in the warmth it breathed and the comfort it gave. For three years she had given her heart away with a ribbon tied upon it. For three years . . . For such a long time her happiness had seemed infinite, but reality refused to allow her to continue in her world forever. On a day no different than any other, Juliet came to a conclusion: If she was truly loved, her curse should have been broken. Only love could undo what bound her family to the form of animals.

Then he changed.

What she saw was not the man she had loved for as long as she did. It was a man that had come to the realization that he had to give back what he had taken three years ago: her heart. With one look, William shattered the world that Juliet had been living in for so long. As the walls of her happiness crumbled, she found that she had been the only one entranced by this love. His heart had been taken back long before that moment, and slowly, she untied his heartstrings from her slender fingers, and let his heart freely go without another tug of pain.

"I'm so sorry."

A thousand words - a thousand apologies would never quite match the one that had been said to her on that day. The stab of pain, the tearing of her raw heart, and the endless thoughts that refused to be thought that day were just whispers against those words.

France was a beautiful country known for its romantic language. It had won her over, but beyond the language there was only heartache to be felt.

During the events of D-Day, Juliet had found herself wishing that she could strangle time, make the hands of time stop turning, make the bells stop ringing, and make the one man she had loved with everything continue loving her. But nothing ever goes as one might wish. Does it?

William volunteered to become part of a group that would devote its time to helping people across the world. His heart was already taken by his job, and probably, by someone else. Without a single glance back, William departed from France a month after D-Day, and Juliet placed her raw emotions into a box that she left on a shelf in the back of her heart, locking it away behind a door of steel. Her interest for the piano began to dwindle away, and before her parents could understand what had happened, a prodigy walked away from her dreams. In the course of one year after, Juliet found that her stay in France had been prolonged by her need to cling to the memories of Paris' streets. With no real reason to stay in France any longer, Juliet volunteered to return home and see her family. Her parents were happy where they were, and with a smile full of riddles, she offered to go alone unable to tear her parents from where they had made a life. She locked her memories of France inside her heart with her emotions, and walked away from the place that would always have her heart's signature upon it.


End file.
